Thursday, January 31, 2013

A group of stories
centered around the production of dramas for a fictional Korean
television station. The centerpiece is the relationship between a
pair of producers—one an established pro and the other his
up-and-coming ex-girlfriend—but the lives of many other
characters are also explored.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

With
a premise so shallow and mercenary—young women will go out of their
way to watch cute guys, dontchya know—who would have guessed that
there would be more to tvN’s Oh Boy! series of dramas than broad
comedy and wish-fullfilment girl porn? (Not that there would have been anything wrong with that, necessarily.)

But it turns out that each of this series’ three installments has a lot
more to offer—edgy production values, nuanced characters, and real
insight into what it means to be young and searching for a
future in today’s world.

So let’s take a
moment to appreciate the most stunning recent development in drama
land: every single one of tvN’s Oh boy! shows is
actually good.

Thursday, January 24, 2013

A fashion designer
and cop fall in love as they deal with their shared history, which
(in the way of Korean dramas) revolves around a childhood full of
tragedy, abandonment, and cruelty. They eventually realize that not
everyone from their past wants them to be together.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Brace yourselves: this week I’m going
to write about something I probably have no business writing about.
(Again.)

Jezebel, one of my favorite blogs,
recently posted a reaction piece inspired by a segment from the radio show This American Life. The episode was about self
improvement, and it was anchored by a brief interview with a woman
who had moved to South Korea to teach English at an all-girls high
school. Like any true American, she was stunned to realize that
people in other parts of the world don’t necessarily think the way
we do: There were full-length mirrors and scales on every floor of
the school she taught at. Her students used both regularly, and
dreamed of the day they would be rewarded with plastic surgery for
having passed their college entrance exams.

As an American who’s spent the past
year using television to be a peeping tom into Korean culture, this interview and article made me uncomfortable on a few levels. First of all, both are predicated on the assumption that America is somehow different from Korea, a place where physical appearance doesn’t matter. Anyone
who truly believes that—as the interviewee obviously does—is both naive and uninformed.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

As they enter
their thirties, mismatched best friends—he’s an easygoing
charmer, she’s an uptight perfectionist—deal with their mutual
attraction and struggle with life and love.

First impression

Whimsical and
wonderful, this grown-up Taiwanese rom-com seems likely to be a hit
with me. I’m even willing to forgive the female lead for being
involved in fashion design, because she enjoys raining on people’s
parades and demanding that shoes for teenagers be practical. Huzzah!

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

I’m still relatively new to watching
dramas as they air. For most of my first year as a Kdrama zombie, I
waited until shows were fully subbed and available online so I could marathon them as
if they were giant movies. There’s something to be
said for that approach—it’s immersive and makes it easier to
follow the overarching plot. But watching a show as it airs in Korea
has its charms, too.

Take Flower
Boy Next Door, my current pick for watching live(ish). The Kdrama
blogosphere is abuzz with discussion about this bright and funny new
entry in tvN’s Oh Boy series, and it’s fun to follow along with
other people’s commentary about each episode. Not being able to
just hit “play” to watch the next show whenever I want also gives me time
to really digest what I’ve seen.

So far, FBND has been a tasty confection—a sweet candy shell over a dark chocolate heart. Most of the dramas I’ve watched while they were airing haven’t been
that great, but things are looking up: I can barely wait for this week’s episodes of to be subbed. (Which, of course, is exactly what I
said at this point in Big’s run. We all know how that turned
out.)

Thursday, January 10, 2013

A traditional Korean folktale updated and reimagined for the modern world,
Delightful Girl Choon Hyang starts
out with a high-school contract marriage and follows its leads from
friends to lovers as they mature into adulthood, fighting to stay
together in spite of the manipulations of jealous outsiders.

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

No, it wasn’t all the amazing Korean
dramas I stumbled across during the first few months of my addiction
(although that helped).

It was actually the Dramabeans year end
recaps for 2011, which drove me wild with envy. To have seen so many
dramas! To write so authoritatively about them! To recognize actors
by name, and excel at playing six degrees of Park Shi Hoo! When I read those
articles, I saw unicorns and rainbows.

And now here I am, having posted on
this blog at least twice a week for the past 52 weeks. In the
meanwhile, I’ve watched an obscene number of dramas—new and old,
good and bad—and can recognize, name, and outline the relative
merits of practically every handsome young actor working in Korea
today. (Next year, I’ll work on the old and ugly. Or not.) I know
what I like (realistic romantic comedies with a heavy dose of
melodrama), what I dislike (whimpering, useless female leads; talking
heads vying for political power in funny hats), and what I want to
see more of (hot kissing; see above).

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

One of the things I’ve noticed in the
past year of of obsessive drama watching is Korean television’s
penchant for repetition. Whether it was a common plot device like
this year’s abundance of time traveling or a little detail like a
prominently featured umbrella, 2012’s Kdramas have been nothing if
not on trend.